lies and censorship
I promise, I will not turn my blog into a place for political statements - but sometimes writing helps me to be calm. It won't help me accept a bad reality, but I think words can help.What kind of state is the country in when a spokesperson of the office of the president claims that falsehoods are "alternative facts"? The two words that immediately come to mind are fallacies and lies. A fallacy is defined as a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument, while a lie is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive. Both NPR and the New York Times have gone with the more conservative approach, but in my mind "alternative facts" are out-and-out lies.
I am appalled at the focus of the executive orders that have come out of the White House in the few short (but seemingly long) days since the inauguration. I hate the censorship of respected agencies (especially the treatment of the EPA), the apparent lack of knowledge of our constitution and the meaning of this country, and the denigration of immigrants. I'm glad that some of his latest antics have raised issues in Congress; I hope that there are enough senators and congressman who have the guts to fight back.
I love that Greenpeace made a statement in Washington today. From a PBS Newshour blog entry today:
Greenpeace activists hung a large banner reading “RESIST” from a 270-foot construction crane in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning to protest President Donald Trump.
“It is a message to this administration,” Nancy Pili Hernandez, a Greenpeace activist based in San Francisco, said on a Facebook livestream as she hung from the crane with safety harnesses. “But more than that, this is a hand-painted love letter to you. This is a message to the people.”
Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Update on January 28: Note that these "alt" twitter IDs are run by groups of individuals who do not work for the federal government.
